Tom Mulcair is the smartest guy in the room. Does anyone care?

Andre Agassi once hawked cameras with the line, “Image is everything”.

Thomas Muclair should think about it. The application of Agassi’s unintentional insight is cruel in both dating and politics.

One couldn’t picture Robert Stanfield, for example, as a Facebook phenom. It was deadly enough to the Underwear King’s political career when he was up against Pierre Trudeau to look like a sleepy, if benevolent, simian in a telegenic age. In Stanfield’s case, the Harvard-educated businessman just never came across in public. The image of Stanfield which did penetrate was the guy who famously fumbled the football in the 1974 Wages and Price control election.

Thomas Mulcair seems headed for the same fate. Justin Trudeau has shown he can float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Mulcair can certainly sting; floating is another matter.

As the new EKOS poll demonstrates, Trudeau’s show-stopping appearance in leadership politics has changed everything — or more properly, restored the former order. It pays to remember that we live in an age of meteoric rises and spectacular falls, all in the blink of an eye. For now, though, Mulcair suddenly seems a generation out of step.

The General Grant beard doesn’t help. Somehow, Stephen Harper links facial hair with socialism. Hence that image of Justin Trudeau with the little Pirates of the Caribbean goatee in the inaugural attack ad. It is pure nonsense to indulge in beard-bashing, but I do it under the Agassi Principle.

Let it be said clearly: Thomas Mulcair doesn’t fumble too many footballs. Intellectually, he is the pick of the current leadership litter in federal politics. He is even better on his feet in the House of Commons than former Liberal leader Bob Rae, who could be formidable. He has cabinet experience with the former Charest government in Quebec. He also knows how to win on the other guy’s turf, as he has repeatedly done in the former Liberal stronghold of Outremont.

Stephen Harper links facial hair with socialism. Hence that image of Justin Trudeau with the little Pirates of the Caribbean goatee in the inaugural attack ad. It is pure nonsense to indulge in beard-bashing, but I do it under the Agassi Principle.

Under Mulcair’s leadership, the NDP has the clearest positions on most of the big issues. Unlike the government — which confuses policy with Stephen Harper’s peculiar notions of who counts and who doesn’t — or Justin Trudeau, who is easing his way into policy without any pretensions about having all the answers, the NDP stands alone in declaring its core beliefs: sustainable development through adding value to resources; social justice for all, including Aboriginal Peoples; and a return to a model of governance that looks more like a parliamentary democracy and less like a junta.

Mulcair is certainly not without blemishes on his political strategy record. It was not a good move to lower the bar for Quebec separation — especially when that decision was widely seen as a self-interested attempt to preserve the NDP’s Quebec seats by attracting soft nationalist votes. Neither General Grant, nor any other federalist, should be making it easier for the Rebels to get over the wall.

Mulcair also raised hackles when he visited Alberta and delivered what was taken as a lecture on how that province should develop its resources. Although Mulcair’s view was perfectly sensible (before it was subjected to the usual torque by pro-government media), he did stray into a sensitive area: provincial jurisdiction over resources. It will be remembered in Alberta. But then, Alberta wasn’t about to make him Man of the Year anyway.

The third thing the NDP leader has taken heat over — and I think the objection is absurd — is that he went to Washington and lobbied against his own government on the advisability of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Two things come to mind. First, Mulcair lobbied nobody; he answered questions in a way that was perfectly consistent with his position on the pipeline back home. The Conservatives have been ten-thumbed in their stewardship of the environment and archly dishonest, and Keystone as currently designed simply exports Canadian jobs.

Second, if ministers like Joe Oliver think what Mulcair did was somehow disloyal, he should remember that Stephen Harper did the same thing in the United States when Jean Chretien wisely kept Canada out of the Iraq War. Harper said in the Wall Street Journal that it was a “great mistake” not to have joined the coalition of the willing. Joe, does that mean that Dear Leader, shrink-wrapped as he always is in the flag, is disloyal too?

Mulcair operates in an age that confronts mountains of information with just minutes of attention. Accordingly, Thomas Mulcair suffers from the defect of his best point: He is a man of substance.

All of the above are political issues that Thomas Mulcair will wrestle with — winning some, losing others. But there is no getting away from the Agassi Principle; in an age of information overload, most people have made the choice of speed over content. That is largely what the digital revolution is about. By far the speediest way to get your message out is through your image, not your arguments — however substantial, erudite, or even true they may be.

Robert Stanfield operated in a world where television dominated politics and appearances dominated television. The current NDP leader operates in an age that confronts mountains of information with just minutes of attention. Accordingly, Thomas Mulcair suffers from the defect of his best point: He is a man of substance. In order to like him, you have to try harder, know more, read more.

Judging from the voter turnout in the last federal election, people aren’t trying all that hard. And if anyone is likely to rouse the youth vote from the deep sleep of narcissistic disengagement, it is not Thomas Mulcair but Justin Trudeau. Prince Charming’s awakening kiss will not be offered in the Red Book, but in the brief sweet of the tweet.

And so the NDP begins a stretch of living dangerously with a brilliant leader with a beard who is losing ground. If Trudeau’s numbers hold or get stronger, both Mulcair and the prime minister will have the same political enemy. When that happened in 2005, Stephen Harper and Jack Layton entered into a marriage of convenience that toppled the Martin government, and led directly to the first Harper government.

But the dynamic was very different then. The Liberals already had been reduced to a minority and were mortally wounded by Adscam. This time around, it is the Harper government that is gasping for credibility as the power of fear begins to fade and the instances of bungling and scandal multiply. Stephen Harper has turned the Conservatives into a one-man band. The last thing Thomas Mulcair should do is hop in bed with the tuba player.

Far better for Joyce Murray and Nathan Cullen to have a quiet dinner sometime soon, maybe over at Elizabeth May’s house. That way, public life’s longest journey — from politics to statesmanship — might be in Thomas Mulcair’s cards.

Michael Harris is a writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker. He was awarded a Doctor of Laws for his “unceasing pursuit of justice for the less fortunate among us.” His eight books include Justice Denied, Unholy Orders, Rare ambition, Lament for an Ocean, and Con Game. His work has sparked four commissions of inquiry, and three of his books have been made into movies. He is currently working on a book about the Harper majority government to be published in the autumn of 2014 by Penguin Canada.

The views, opinions and positions expressed by all iPolitics columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of iPolitics.